Thesis Examination Committee

Prof Wing Hung KI, ECE/HKUST (Chairperson)
Prof Chi Ying TSUI, ECE/HKUST (Thesis Supervisor)
Prof James SHE, ECE/HKUST

Abstract

Electrical stimulation (ES) is used for cell manipulation. Externally applied electric fields at different levels can induce different advantageous cell reactions. Low-Voltage Electrical Stimulation (LV-ES) can promote cell growth and neuronal regeneration, while higher voltage ES (HV-ES) is often used to kill cancer/tumor cells by altering the subcellular organelle structure. Although much work has been done on the development of the theory behind such stimulation, experiments to determine the optimum stimulation profiles for various cell types and applications have been costly, bulky and inefficient.
 
To accelerate and encourage experiments for such purposes, two separate stimulation systems (covering both LV- and HV- ES) were developed and tested.  The LV-ES system include all essential modules as a standalone device. It can generate programmable wide-range Bi-Phasic current waveform (0-9mA, 1-100Hz) with selectable Duty Cycle and Deadtime. The second device can generate continuous High Pulsed Electric field up to 60kV/cm with pulse width as short as 100ns using fast Silicon Carbide transistor, targeted on Irreversible Electroporation and nano-second Pulsed Electric Field experiments. Two Electrode systems were developed to boost both the LV-and HV-ES experiment efficiencies by 24 and 25 times respectively compared to traditional methods. The resulting devices has been tested and applied on In-Vivo and In-Vitro experiments with positive results.